Society's ChildS


Blackbox

Swedish church reference to Jesus pushes gender-neutral pronoun 'hen'


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 16:13 UTC
Jesus on cross
© Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters
A church in a Swedish city has defended its choice of gender-neutral pronoun 'hen' in reference to Jesus in an advertisement. The church insists the word gives "new perspective."

In November, the largest religious institution in the country, the Church of Sweden, advised its clergy to avoid terms like 'Lord' and 'He' in worship services in order to not highlight that God is male, in the new version of a handbook on how to conduct services. The move has triggered a backlash, with critics saying the change undermines the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity and politicizes faith.

The issue became even more heated when a church in the Swedish city of Vasteras referred to Jesus as 'hen' in an advertisement for a Christmas worship service. The pronoun is used as an alternative to gender-specific words when a person's gender is not known or not relevant. Some Twitter users rushed to ask whether it is now an official stance of the church. Susann Senter, the church's dean, and Bishop of Vasteras Mikael Mogren were forced to come up with explanations.

Comment: See also:

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Heart - Black

Erica Garner dies at 27

Gwynne Hogan
New York Post
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 17:07 UTC
Erica Garner
© Susan Watts/New York Daily NewsErica Garner has become an advocate against police brutality since her dad’s death.
Erica Garner, whose father Eric became a national symbol of excessive police force after he died in a struggle with cops on Staten Island, died early Saturday, her family said.

Garner, 27, suffered "major brain damage" from a heart attack last weekend.

Comment:

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Evil Rays

Coordinated economic protests spread in Iran - pro-government counter-protests in the works


Reuters
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 16:30 UTC
iran protest
© AP Photo/Ebrahim NorooziIranian protesters chant slogans at a rally in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017. Iranian hard-liners rallied Saturday to support the country's supreme leader and clerically overseen government.
Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, Iranian news agencies and social media reports said, as price protests turned into the largest wave of demonstrations since nationwide pro-reform unrest in 2009.

Police dispersed anti-government demonstrators in the western city of Kermanshah as protests spread to Tehran and several other cities a day after rallies in the northeast, the semi-official news agency Fars said.

The outbreak of unrest reflects growing discontent over rising prices and alleged corruption, as well as concern about the Islamic Republic's costly involvement in regional conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq.


Comment: Reuters doesn't tell you, but "as well as" has a very specific definition in their lexicon. It means "in addition to a tiny minority of others who have hijacked the largely economic concerns of the protesters with their own political meddling".


An official said a few protesters had been arrested in Tehran, and footage posted on social media showed a heavy police presence in the capital and some other cities.

Washington condemned the arrests. "The Iranian government should respect their people's rights, including their right to express themselves," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.


Comment: Right. Coming from the U.S., where "a few protesters" is just a drop in the bucket. Remember Occupy Wall Street? Occupy Arrests Near 8,000 As Wall Street Eludes Prosecution. 8000? Iran really needs to get its act together if it ever wants to approach U.S. levels of authoritarianism.


Comment: Iranians have good reason to protest. Rouhani's policies have not helped the Iranian economy, unemployment is high, many aren't receiving their paychecks. And while Iran's theocracy is much milder than it was in the 80s, it's still a theocracy. But all that is beside the point. Protests are normal. But when such protests happen in a country that happens to be a U.S. enemy, said protests take on an extra dimension of importance. Stoked on by shady actors and intelligence assets, they are weaponized as tools for regime change and used to tarnish the government's reputation even further - witness Ukraine 4 years ago. (Protests in the U.S., by contrast, are put down or ignored as the ravings of bunch of mentally deranged rabble.) The timing of these protests, their relatively low turnout, and the involvement of the MEK terrorist organization all should raise an eyebrow or two. See: Regime change op? Economic protests turn political in Iran - weeks after U.S., Israel sign anti-Iranian pact

Watch out, Iran. Trump is watching:


And Twitter is spreading the word:




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Ambulance

Devastating effect of Israeli tear gas on Palestinians

Ibrahim Husseini & Liam O'Hare
Al Jazeera
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
teargas
© Reuters
A Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank may be the most exposed place to tear gas in the world, according to the author of a new study.

The Human Rights Centre of the University of California at Berkeley recently reported that Israel's security forces have carried out a "widespread", "frequent" and "indiscriminate" use of tear gas against Palestinian refugees in Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem.

The report - said to be the first to analyse the effects of tear gas in the West Bank - found that 100 percent of the more than 200 Palestinian residents surveyed in Aida camp were exposed to tear gas over the past year.

The report, No Safe Space: Health Consequences of Tear Gas Exposure Among Palestine Refugees, collected testimonies last summer in Aida and the nearby Dheisheh refugee camp.

"We found that the constant and unpredictable use of tear gas in Palestine refugee camps has a devastating effect on the mental and physical health of residents," said the report's co-author, Dr Rohini Haar, a researcher at the UC Berkeley centre and a doctor with Physicians for Human Rights. The effects, Haar told Al Jazeera, are especially harmful on "the most vulnerable, including pregnant women, children, the elderly, and people already in ill health".

Comment: Palestinians have become test cases for new varieties of tear gas, more potent and poisonous than the last. Another horrific example of relentless Israeli inhumanity that goes unchecked.

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Eye 1

Israeli govt demolishes Bedouin tribe's village for the 122nd time, arrests elder for trespassing on his own land & has documents to prove it


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 15:41 UTC
Bedouin tribe
© Amir Cohen / ReutersBedouin men sit in a village known by Bedouin Arabs as al-Arakib, one of many ramshackle desert communities whose names have never appeared on any official map, November 2, 2011.
A Bedouin elder has been given ten months in prison and a hefty fine for trespassing on land his tribe claims to have lived on for 750 years. RT traveled to the disputed village, leveled by Israeli authorities 122 times.

Since its first demolition in July 2010, the village of Al Araqib in southern Israel has been demolished another 121 times in the Israeli government's struggle to root out the Arab Bedouin tribe that lives there. However, the Al-Turi tribe insists the land in the northern Negev Desert has always belonged to them, and their ancestors inhabited it 750 years ago.

"It will take years until this fight ends," village elder Abu Madiam,68, told RT, saying that Israel is trying to push the Bedouin tribe to give up their ancestral land. Last week, an Israeli court sentenced Abu Madiam to 10 months behind bars and a fine of 36,000 shekels ($10,000), finding him guilty of 19 counts of trespassing on state land, according to Haaretz.
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Sherlock

SOTT Focus: Luke Harding: The Latest Media Shill Trying to Prove Russian Collusion Where There Is None

Daniel Solomon
Sott.net
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 17:23 UTC
Luke Harding
Luke Harding is an obsequious and insufferable Englishman and long-term foreign affairs hack with The Guardian. He was also the paper's correspondent in Russia from 2007-2011 before he was kicked out for breaking the rules of his press accreditation by visiting the area of counter-terrorism operations without informing the relevant security authorities aka 'spying'. As a self-styled 'Russia expert', Harding claims to know a lot about what really goes on behind closed Kremlin doors. In reality however, his track record of belligerent and spurious allegations against Russia suggests his real bosses are located in MI6 HQ in London.

It's no surprise then that in his recent interview on MSNBC Harding can be seen plying his trade-craft and spreading more lies and nonsense about Trump's 'collusion' with Russia. It's the same old tripe that has been force-fed to the general public ever since Trump won the U.S. Presidential elections last year. Even though the 'Russiagate' scandal has been the most widely reported event of the last year, with CNN mentioning Russia on-air almost 16,000 times since Trump's inauguration, it still amounts to one big 'nothing-burger' packed full of no evidence and lots of hearsay and innuendo.

None of this bothers people like Harding however, as they seek to capitalize on the paranoia and hysteria surrounding the supposed Russia/Trump connection, and in Harding's case, flog copies of his gutter-press new book - supposedly an in-depth expose of how Russia helped Donald Trump win the election.

Comment: To learn more on how the United States Congress is attempting to push a largely made-up story of Russian collusion and hacking into the American political system and last years elections, read Joe Quinn's recent article:

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Newspaper

Berlin will provide women-only 'safe spaces' new year's eve

Chris Tomlinson
Breitbart
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 16:08 UTC
fireworks
© Adam Berry/Getty Images
The government of Berlin has decided to create women-only "safe spaces" on New Year's Eve in order to prevent potential migrant sex attacks that have plagued New Year's celebrations since 2015.

In order to avoid a repeat of the Cologne sex attacks, the Berlin government announced the creation of women-only spaces in the area near the Brandenburg Gate for New Year's Eve. The "safety zone" will be, according to organisers, a space for women to go who may have been harassed or feel uncomfortable, and will be staffed by members of the Red Cross, Kronen Zeitung reports.
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Stock Down

Trump effect: Black unemployment hits 17-year low in U.S.

Michael W. Chapman
SNSNews.com
Mon, 18 Dec 2017 15:57 UTC
black man suit
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics( BLS), the unemployment rate for black Americans is the lowest it has been since the year 2000, 17 years ago.

In November, the national unemployment rate for black Americans, ages 16 and over, was 7.3%.

The last time it was 7.3% was in the year 2000, during the months September, October and November.

During the Bush and Obama years (2001 -2016), the black unemployment rate fluctuated between 7.7% and a high of 16.8%.

Back in September 2017, the rate was 7.0%, a low that had not been seen since April of 2000. Prior to that, going all the way back to 1972, the black unemployment rate never fell below 7.0% and was largely in the double digits throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Comment:





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Handcuffs

'Nigerian Prince' email scammer turns out to be 67-year-old Louisiana man


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 15:53 UTC
Michael Neu Nigerian prince
© Slidell Police Department / Facebook
The mastermind who claimed to be Nigerian royalty in order to conduct a well-known 'phishing' email scam has been arrested in Louisiana.

Michael Neu, 67, was arrested this week following an 18-month investigation by Slidell Police Department's Financial Crimes Division. He has been charged with 269 counts of wire fraud and money laundering and is believed to have set up hundreds of scam email accounts costing unassuming citizens thousands of dollars.

The scam emails involve a well-known trope that is almost as old as the internet: A person claiming to be a Nigerian prince, or their representative, emails you requesting personal financial information in order to expedite the transfer of a massive inheritance of which you were hitherto unaware.
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Attention

'War on cops' is police propaganda - cop deaths on the decline while citizens killed by cops at epidemic levels

Jay Syrmopoulos
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 12:00 UTC
police state
Data from 2017 reveals that the idea that there is a "war on cops" is nothing more than police propaganda, as the number of officers killed in the line of duty dropped to the second-lowest total in more than 50 years.

Conversely, there were over 1,000 people killed by cops for the fourth year in a row, according to the website killedbypolice.net, which operates a database of individuals killed by law enforcement officers.

According to data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit aimed at honoring officers and improving safety, as of December 28:


Comment: As cops continue to become further militarized and trained in the 'us vs them' mentality, the numbers of public casualties will continue to rise. The idea that cops are there to serve and protect the public are long gone by. See also:

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